


In the room where you sleep

by readerswriter



Category: The Conjuring (Movies)
Genre: F/M, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21845734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readerswriter/pseuds/readerswriter
Summary: Ed Warren cannot sleep as the room he sleeps in has another presence in it - and it is uninvited.
Relationships: Ed Warren/Lorraine Warren
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	In the room where you sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GeorgeEmerson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeorgeEmerson/gifts).



> My first fic in this fandom! Dear Yuletide requester, I hope you like it, as much as I enjoyed writing it <3
> 
> Un-Beta'ed, so all mistakes are mine.

Lorrain Warren had given many interviews in her life. She had been asked all sorts of questions - which was the most disturbing case they had ever solved, was she evr terrified for her life, did she ever give up hope on any case etcetera. But what she had not been asked till date was the one question she was facing now in her latest interview.

“Which is a case you will never forget because it was special to you?”

Lorraine smiled a little at the young interviewer in front of her, eager to soak in every word she would say. She looked up and saw Ed leaning against the door-frame, a cup of tea in his hands gently steaming up his face as he raised it to his lips which were stretched in a soft smile. 

“My most special unforgettable case? It is the one which led me to the love of my life, my husband, Ed Warren,” Lorraine said softly.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

The year of 1942 was graced with an especially cold winter. People would rarely come out of their homes in Bridgeport as few wanted to brave the freezing chills.

16 year old Ed Warren however did not want to be home. He had a simple reason- his home was haunted.

The Warrens had recently shifted to a new house. But in their old house, Ed had grown up with something that had lived in his closet for years. A faceless glob of black smoke in the beginning, it had slowly turned into a face as the years went by. He had been terrified the first time he saw it, but his dad - being the policeman he was- told him that there were no such things as ghosts and that everything always had a logical reasoning behind it. Ed knew that most things obviously could be explained away by science. What could not be explained by science was things like the faceless mask slowly turning into a face he had never seen before ever in his life or the sheer amount of terror he felt each time he saw it. As the years had passed- the terror had plateaued. The face did nothing more than stare at him from the depths of his closet. He had tried to change rooms, but he found that it did not help as he always ended up back in his old room, blinking awake to feel someone staring at him, from the closet. He tried going to sleep at different times, but without fail, each night at 3 am, he would blink awake to panic clawing at his throat and a dead stare boring holes into the side of his face.

He had begged his family to move, or even to switch rooms with him. But they all brushed it off as dumb fantasies of a teenage boy. Once he had even managed to get his mom to come check his closet, but the moment she had opened the closet, everything was normal. No oppressive feeling, no fear clogging the air- nothing. It was almost as if only he could see and feel the presence haunting his home.

So when they finally decided to move, after his father got a big promotion in his office, Ed was beyond happy. His nights could finally be his. He would be free from the curse of always waking up at 3 am. He would be able to sleep uninterrupted again.

The first few nights in the new house were fine. No presence haunting him, no doors opening- nothing. He had deliberately chosen a room which did not have a closet but instead had a chest of drawers to store his stuff cause he was over closets now. The first week went by peacefully enough.

But last night, the face he did not know came back. And it came back with a vengeance.

Ed roused from his sleep at exactly 3 a.m. and felt something hovering over him. He did not want to open his eyes though, because he knew the moment he would, the face would be back. He lay in terror for the entire night, clutching his blankets tighter and tighter, as whatever was hovering over him continued to do so till the first ray of sunlight pierced through the darkened sky.

Edward bolted up as soon as the oppressive force left and rushed downstairs. He would not stay a minute longer in this cursed room, and he would not allow himself to be haunted anymore. He knew who he had to contact for help, and he would do that today at school.

___________________________________________________________________

Lorraine Moran was known to everyone in their town. She was the granddaughter of the famous psychic Rita Moran, who had passed away last year and it was rumoured that Lorraine had inherited her gifts of clairvoyance and of talking with the spirits. Rita used to hold seances and it was a very successful venture for the Morans. 

But Lorraine herself was not into this psychic stuff, because she was a Catholic and she believed that God would not be so cruel as to make people who had already gone through the agony of death suffer more by turning them into ghosts or demons.

So when a half-crazy Ed Warren came barrelling at her at her lunch break, she almost screamed. Ed was out of breath, and was looking as if he had been up all night and he was speaking so fast that she could not make out one single word. Ed was her senior, one grade above her, and she had always thought he had a reluctant boyish charm about him when she saw him at the movie theatre, working as an usher. But the Ed infront of her was miles away from the charming boy she always thought him to be.

“Ed, slow down. I cannot understand a word you are saying,” she finally interrupted him.

Ed stopped and looked at her for a second. He then took a huge deep breath, rubbed his face with both hands vigorously, slapped himself a few times, tugged at his hair and then looked at her again as she stood there in open bemusement.

“I need you help,” He finally said. “No one in my family believes me, they think I am crazy, but please Lorraine, you gotta believe me, I am being haunted.”

Lorraine immediately felt skeptical. Haunted? Seriously? That was what this strange boy was going with? Her opinion of him deflated all of a sudden.

Almost as if he could sense her growing disinterest, Ed immediately leaned and grabbed her hand. Ignoring the way she gasped out in protest, he begged her, “Please believe me Lorraine. Please. You are my only hope now.”

They stood there in silence for a whole minute- Ed pleading with his eyes and Lorraine just stunned at what was happening. But the plea in his eyes looked too genuine to be fake. She had seen her fair share of people who faked things when grandmama used to do her seances. SHe would sometimes let Lorraine watch (to teach her to be strong when she would use her own gifts, grandmama always said) and it had always fascinated Lorraine to see how she would be able to connect with people from all walks of life and just reach out and help them. Lorraine had wanted to be like her since she could barely walk, wanted to help people like she did, but her death last year had impacted her hugely. She no longer wanted to do this- whatever grandmama used to do. She wanted to have nothing from that part of her life, but it seems fate had other plans.

Lorraine stared at the boy in front of her and studied him for a minute more. Just as he slowly released her hand, despair creeping up on his expressive face, Lorraine spoke.

“Tell me everything from the start. And show me the place where you said you saw the ghost.”

The smile that broke out on Ed Warren’s face may have been the most beautiful thing that Lorraine Moran may have ever seen in her 16 years of life. 

__________________________________________________________________

Ed had snuck Lorraine past his parents after dinner, and they were currently huddled next to the chest of drawers and staring at the old alarm clock which was slowly ticking away. Lorraine was nursing a cup of tea that Ed had brought up for her, and he himself was just folded into himself, arms wrapped around his knees and looking briefly over at the darkest part of the room. The presence always manifests in the darkest parts- that’s what Lorraine had told him earlier. 

Lorraine. 

Ed stole a furtive glance at her- looking at her side profile for a long second. She was absolutely gorgeous. He had always seen her when she came to the theatre with her mother, and had had a small crush on her for the longest time. He could not believe that he was sitting here right now (with someone who was the love of his life), and it was in such a bleak situation. He had always imagined himself asking her out in a manner which suited her lovely self- maybe a date in a quiet cafe where they would maybe share a drink, a walk in the park with hands held between themselves. 

Certainly not this- sitting in the dark, and waiting for the appearance of something that had haunted Ed since he was a kid.

The clock continued ticking away, and he was almost in a doze now when he felt chilled all of a sudden. 

Instantly awake, he reached out to shake Lorraine but found her looking right at the faceless glob of darkness that was slowly taking shape. He looked down at her hands and found her clutching a silver cross tightly. He started violently when the face appeared right in front of Lorraine and opened its mouth to reveal a gaping maw. It was mouthing something, and Lorraine seemed to be in a trance. It was almost as if it was speaking to her- and Ed knew he should be terrified right now, but all he could think was how brave this young girl was and how he was sure he had never seen a more courageous person ever.

The face continued its silent screams, when Lorraine turned to him and asked urgently, “Tell me, did you bring anything back to your old house when you were young from a place which was near a stream-no, no not a stream, something else, a lake? A well?”

“What?” Ed asked, confused.

Lorraine grabbed his hand and questioned him even more urgently- “It is saying you took something precious from it- what did you bring back to your old house, and is also here? Usually, entities such as these are low-level, and do not harm the people in their surroundings. They are also confined to the place where they died. But you brought something back from the place where it died, and so it followed you with it because it has attached itself to an object. So think. Did you ever go somewhere when you were a kid, and bring back anything from a place which was near a body of water?

Ed thought about it long and hard riffling through his memories to check and couldn't remember anything - until he finally remembered it. A young him, maybe 4 or 5 years old, and he had been playing next to a small lake. It had been a freezing winter then too, and his mother had cautioned him many times to come back inside but he had continued playing till it was dark. Just as he had been about to go inside, something had pushed him into the lake. He had struggled to breathe, gulping in water, certain in his panicked young mind that he was going to die, and had almost been out of air when something had reached in and caught hold of his hand and pulled him out. He had lain there, shivering and cold and coughing out water till he was nearly blue in the face and had looked around to see who had pulled him out. But there had been no one in sight. A lonely crow's caws were all that he could hear in the stunned aftermath of his near drowning. His mother had nearly thrown a fit when he had finally trudged back home, and run him a hot bath and fed him chicken soup to warm him up. When she had been undressing him to help him into the bath, a small silver chain with a tiny pendant had fallen out of his pocket. His mother had not even seen it in her panic, but Ed had seen it and was now holding on to it while he lay in bed. He felt this belonged to whoever had saved him, and he would treasure it.

Lorraine blinked when he told her the entire story and then he reached inside his shirt and pulled out the necklace he had hung the pendant on. Lorraine looked at the tiny silver flower and almost cried. When she reached out a trembling hand to touch it, Ed softly asked her if she was okay. Lorraine nodded furiously, but then whispered back that the locket belonged to a boy named Charles, who had drowned in that very lake years ago. His mother had not been able to protect him and blamed herself for his death and so, after she died, she haunted that lake and had attached herself to the only thing that was present of her child in that lake which was the tiny locket. When Ed was drowning, she had saved him. But when he took the locket out with him accidentally, she was forced to come to him as well and because she hated to be away from the place where she lost her child, she tried to scare him to go back and leave the locket there so she could be reunited with her child. She had never meant to harm him at all.

Ed closed his eyes when he heard the entire story and choked back a sob. So all this time, it had only been him that had been in the wrong. He had been haunted yes, but only for a different cause.

He opened his eyes and looked at Lorraine and told her to tell the spirit that he would return her son back to her. He vowed to do that the very next day, and when Lorraine turned and looked at the face, telling it what he told her, Ed swore he could almost see a smile on that face.

After that, he escorted Lorraine back home and just as she was about to go inside, he plucked up his courage and asked her out on a date. Her answer made him grin wider than he ever had before, and that night- with a content mind and a calm heart- Ed Warren went to sleep.

Maybe not all hauntings are bad, especially if they bring the love of your life to you.


End file.
